7/7 hero is £100m cocaine kingpin: Fireman among 33 sent to jail as Britain's biggest drugs gang is smashed

A fireman who rescued victims of the July 7 bombings has been exposed as a cocaine smuggler at the heart of Britain’s biggest drugs gang.

Simon Ford became a national hero after receiving a bravery award for risking his life to help injured passengers escape from the No 30 bus blown up in ­Tavistock Square.

But yesterday he was unmasked as a key player in a £100million criminal empire run from a ­backstreet taxi office, where ­£1million of dirty money was ­laundered every day.

Disgraced: Hero firefighter Simon Ford (left) will serve 14 years behind bars for his role in the £100m cocaine ring. Cage fighter Aman Salhan, 28, right was also found in the flat when police raided as £5.5m of the drug was being divided up

Blown up: Ford received a London Fire Brigade Gold Award after risking his life in the aftermath of the bombing of the number 30 double-decker bus in Tavistock Square on 7/7

Ford, 41, was jailed for 14 years after being caught red-handed with cocaine worth £10million in Scotland Yard’s biggest drugs raid. He was among 33 gangsters jailed for a total of more than 200 years.

The fireman, who was on sick leave claiming he was suffering stress since the 2005 suicide bombings, was found by police dividing up more than 220lb of cocaine on the kitchen floor of his flat in Chertsey, Surrey.

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The cocaine had been smuggled across the Channel from Belgium in a speed boat and dropped off at Hythe beach in Kent.

Ford, who led a champagne lifestyle with a string of glamorous girlfriends, had been preparing the drug parcels for delivery to dealers waiting at service stations around the M25.

Police also found the waterproof canoe bags, still wet with sea water, in which the drugs had been carried.

Details of the fireman’s role can be revealed for the first time after reporting restrictions were lifted yesterday when the last of the gang members was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court.

The 16 trials over the past two years followed a huge police operation to smash the crime ring run by a kingpin known as Al Capone.

In Operation Eaglewood – the Metropolitan Police’s biggest ever simultaneous swoop – 520 officers carried out dawn raids at 30 addresses across London and the Home Counties. They used battering rams, and in one instance a JCB, to blast into the fortified homes of the ringleaders.

It followed a six-month intelligence operation to uncover the network of gangs who used a tin-roofed backstreet cab firm to flood the streets of London and the South East with cocaine and cannabis.Huge consignments of cocaine from Columbia passed through the Royal Oak Taxi office near Paddington, West London, supplying at least ten major drugs syndicates.

Drugs raid: Cocaine found in Simon Ford's smart flat in Chertsey when police burst in during co-ordinated action under Operation Eaglewood

Raid: Police arrest a man after using a mechanical digger to smash into the luxury home of Iraq-born Maythen Al Ansari

The tiny office also acted as a one-stop money laundering shop, where £1million sackloads of sterling were swapped for smaller holdalls of ‘clean’ 500 euro notes.

The operation’s mastermind was 47-year-old Eyad Iktilat, an Israeli Arab who came to Britain in the mid-1990s.

On paper he ran a legitimate taxi firm from his office underneath the A40 flyover.

But behind the scenes the crime lord, who called himself Al Capone after the notorious Chicago gangster, made millions and bought himself a £2.75million Spanish villa, a Ferrari and a Bentley with personalised numberplates.

Through his taxi office, couriers would bring in £1million bundles of cash from drug dealers which were taken to a high street bureau de change run by another gang member, Jean-Claude Frigieri.

He exchanged the heavy holdalls for 500 euro notes to make the sums more manageable and easier to transport for couriers. Detectives filmed Iktilat handing cash to Frigieri and recorded him counting out wads of £5,000 in his office.

Remembered: Firefighters hold a one minute silence in Tavistock Square on July 7 last year for those killed in the bomb blast. Jailed Ford was praised for his actions on the day of the disaster

Wanted: Carlos Tabares (left) and Nicholas John 'Peter' Tayler who are still being sough by detectives for their part in the cocaine ring

He was also filmed at his home in Willesden, North-West London, grinning as he handed holdalls of cash to associates. The drugs baron was jailed for 30 years for money laundering and conspiracy to supply cocaine, while Frigieri, 56, received ten years for money laundering.

Another jailed gang member was a former Iraqi refugee who acted as the gang’s banker.

After seeking asylum in the UK, Maythem Al Ansari built up a £40million property portfolio including flats in Mayfair and hotels in India. In the police raids, the 42-year-old was woken by 50 officers who used a JCB digger to demolish the 6ft wall and steel gates surrounding his £3million house in Hillingdon, West London.

Haul: Wrapped cocaine ready for delivery which had been brought into the UK on a small inflatable boat. it was seized from Simon Ford's Chertsey flat on February 13, 2008

The married father of three was led out in handcuffs past his two black Mercedes, white Hummer, a 4x4 Porsche Cayenne and a silver BMW.

Through his businesses, which included a restaurant and mortgage company, he had seemingly legitimate access to large sums of money – the perfect cover for someone who wished to change large amounts of cash into euros.

Al Ansari admitted money laundering and was jailed for three years.

Other gang members included ­Russell Tate, 49, the brother of Pat Tate, one of three drugs dealers killed in a Range Rover in Rettendon, Essex, in 1995 – a killing portrayed in the film Essex Boys.Tate received a 16-year sentence for conspiracy to supply cocaine.

Yesterday, the last of the 33 gangsters, Anwar Laraba, 39, was jailed for four years and eight months at Southwark Crown Court.

The Algerian illegal overstayer was arrested after he was recorded by undercover police discussing a ­potential 12-ton shipment of cannabis with Iktilat.

Police are still hunting two suspected gang members, Carlos Tabares and Nicholas John “Peter” Tayler.